Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin (L) and President Sauli Niinistö announce the Finnish application for NATO membership at the Presidential Palace, Helsinki, Finland, May 15, 2022 (Alessandro Rampazzo/AFP/Getty)

EA on Times Radio: Who Assassinated A Russian Military Blogger in St. Petersburg?

Monday’s Coverage: Russia Rocked by Bombing in St. Petersburg

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1800 GMT:

The Biden Administration has committed another $2.6 billion in weapons and munitions for Ukraine.

The Pentagon said there is ammunition for US-provided HIMARS medium-range rocket systems, air defense interceptors, artillery rounds, anti-armor systems, small arms, heavy equipment transport vehicles, artillery and tank ammunition, and mortar systems.

UPDATE 1752 GMT:

Finland has formally joined NATO after Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto signed an accession document and handed it to US Secretary of state Antony Blinken at a ceremony in Brussels.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy responded:

My sincere congratulations to Finland and President Sauli Niinistö on joining NATO on the 74th anniversary of its founding.

Amid Russian aggression, the alliance became the only effective guarantee of security in the region. We expect that the Vilnius NATO Summit will bring Ukraine closer to our Euro-Atlantic goal.

UPDATE 1022 GMT:

Lithuania’s Parliament has barred non-resident Russian nationals from purchasing real estate in the country.

The ban cites risks to national security. Legislators also stopped the issue of new visas to nationals of Russia and Belarus.

UPDATE 0923 GMT:

The Moscow Times reports the dismissal of Gen. Rustam Muradov, the commander of Russia’s Eastern Military District forces.

“Two Defense Ministry sources” say Muradov was dismissed after a disastrous Russian offensive against the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar in January and early February.

Russian forces lost about 130 armored units. Entire brigades were decimated by Ukrainian defenders of Vuhledar, in the Donetsk region to the southwest of the frontline city of Bakhmut.

A source in the Eastern Military District source said, “Muradov was suspended because he was a mad idiot who was able to…order soldiers to go to certain death. A lot of people complained about him.”

Analyst Michael Kofman summarizes, “Muradov had the Russian military repeatedly attacking in small mechanized formations through minefields, across open terrain. And they accomplished nothing in Vuhledar.”

Muradov is an experienced commander who also led forces in Russian operations in Syria and the South Caucasus.

UPDATE 0842 GMT:

Eastern European outlet Nexta TV circulates the video of Russian veteran and military blogger Maxim Fomin, a.k.a. Vladlen Tatarsky, receiving a golden bust from a woman identified as Darya Trepova.

At the end of the video, the statuette detonates. Fomin was killed and 40 people injured, five of them seriously, in Sunday evening’s blast.

Trepova was charged with terrorism by Russian authorities on Tuesday.

UPDATE 0816 GMT:

Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight.

The Ukrainian military said 14 were downed, 13 of them over the Odesa region in the south. A business was hit in Odesa, but there were no casualties.

However, four civilians were killed and three wounded by Russian shelling in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine on Monday. One person was slain amid 61 attacks on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

Russian troops have been shelling Kupyansk in the Kharkiv region this morning, setting an “economic building” on fire.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Finland becomes NATO’s 31st member state on Tuesday.

The office of Finnish President Sauli Niinistö confirmed the accession yesterday in a tweet:

The formal ceremony will take place on the 74th anniversary of NATO, established in a bloc in 1949 at the outset of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the accession “will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for NATO as a whole”.

Niinistö and Finland’s Foreign inister Pekka Haavisto, will travel to Brussels for the ceremony. Haavisto said in a statement:

It is a historic moment for us. For Finland, the most important objective at the meeting will be to emphasise Nato’s support to Ukraine as Russia continues its illegal aggression. We seek to promote stability and security throughout the Euro-Atlantic region.

Finland and neighboring Sweden had maintained military nonalignment since the end of World War II, joining neither NATO or the Soviet bloc. However, that policy was rocked by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Three months later, the two Nordic countries applied to join NATO. The process was accelerated — Finland’s accession is the quickest in the bloc’s history — but has been held up by objections from Turkey and Hungary.

Last week the Turkish Parliament approved Finland’s candidacy, after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lifted his blockade of Helsinki, attempting to put pressure on Kurdish activists in the country. Days earlier, the Hungarian Parliament gave its endorsement despite Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s long-time close relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Both Turkey and Finland will hand official texts to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on Tuesday to complete the process.

Both countries are continuing to hold up Stockholm’s accession. NATO’s Stoltenberg said on Monday that Finnish membership “is also good for Sweden”.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko responded to Finland’s imminent accession with the bluster that if “forces and resources of other Nato members are deployed in Finland, we will take additional steps to reliably ensure Russia’s military security [by] strengthening our military potential in the west and in the northwest”.